Visits
by percyjacksonfantothecore
Summary: Grant Ward is in custody, and has been labeled a traitor. In turn, each of the members of his former team show up to pay him a visit. Simmons, May, Coulson, even Fitz and Triplett. But no Skye. And so patiently he waits for the day she'll show…
1. Alone

**This is a series of one-shots on the team visiting Ward in custody. It's all leading up to a special visitor (you guys are welcome to guess)! Although, it might be easy to guess...**

**The first chapter is just an introduction. **

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Grant should feel disgusted.

(He does, in fact. At himself.)

Grant should feel regret.

(He does. At never truly telling Skye.)

Grant should feel like a sinner.

(He is. No matter how many times he tells himself Skye is his salvation.)

And so, here he sits in this glass cage for everyone to see. They're giving him almost as much attention as Loki. They figure he's going to escape or something.

They're wrong. He has nowhere to go, and has no home. He has never belonged anywhere, and now the only cause he's ever blindly to devoted himself to has crumbled, that along with the trust of anyone (and well, everyone) he's ever met in his life.

Grant is an assassin, a merciless killer, but here when he sits bored out of his mind in a jail cell, there's nothing he wants more than to be able to kill himself.

_Nothing?_ He argues with himself, thinking of a couple notable exceptions.

Oh, right. He wants to see Skye one last final time.

That is what he tells himself as he closes his eyes, feigning sleep.

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**And Chapter 2: Jemma Simmons. That's all I'm going to say.**


	2. Jemma Simmons

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**Jemma Simmons**

When Jemma enters the room early in the morning, it's not to check his pulse or do anything remotely scientific to him at all.

She's come to talk, and in the midst of all this, is analyzing him and everything about him.

He wants to cringe at the cold, furious stare she's giving him, but then again, even when he had a purpose, he could never bring himself to expressively show emotion. He'd been a cold, empty shell of a being then, and was only a shell of that shell now.

He looks up, fixing her with the dark-eyed, hungry stare everyone's learned to hate. "Why?" is the question his lips form but can't quite manage to speak.

She understands him nevertheless. "I want an apology." Her tone is cold, brisk, and professional, the "scientist" voice she could never quite pull off back on the BUS.

They've both come a long way from then.

There's thick 2-inch glass separating him from her, but it feels like the distance is so much more. But he commands his voice to speak, using vocal chords that haven't been exercised in weeks. It comes out sounding weak. "I'm sorry," Grant whispers.

"Not for me. For Fitz."

"I'm sorry," he whispers again, more sorrow leaking painfully into his words.

Something about the words is more convincing because her frame relaxes. But her frown does not ease back into a smile. Grant does not think he will be seeing much more of smiles for his future. "He's in the hospital, suffering." She spits the word out, like it's filth, but it strikes home anyway. "Because of you."

Grant sucks in a breath. Sharp, like everything else about him.

With a sideways glance at him, she adds, "He's getting better, no thanks to you."

He stares at her, now lonelier than ever.

She turns, facing away from him. "I would say it was nice to talk to you, but I think you and I both know it wasn't."

Those are her parting words as she leaves the room. And it's those words that he replays again and again for days after she leaves. He shouldn't care; after all, they don't care much for him anymore either.

But deep down, Grant Ward knows that Jemma is right and always has been.

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**Thanks for the read!**

**Chapter 3: Melinda May. **


	3. Melinda May

**Melinda May**

If there's one thing Grant has always admired about Melinda May, it's the way she's so much like him. She isn't as expressive as the other agents, and doesn't flinch from pain.

Although she is quite expressive in bed, he notes wryly. He wants to smile. He doesn't.

In she walks, her heels making a hollow noise on the cement. She stands in the center of the room, her right hand encircling her left wrist in front of her body. She is dressed in black—the standard S.H.I.E.L.D gear.

It's a kind of sick joke for her to be wearing that, especially when there is no SH.I.E.L.D anymore. S.H.I.E.L.D is in tatters, and Grant realizes he has been instrumental in that.

She does not speak, and instead hides behind her aviator sunglasses, her face a cold, cold mask. He stares back at her, through the glasses, and looks for something, anything, even a little warmth. But May has never been warm.

Cold as stone. Just like him.

"Coulson tells me you need some company."

She always talks about Coulson. She revolves around him. Even now, after she's betrayed his trust (and somehow gained it back again, he reminds himself bitterly) she stays true and faithful to him. Phil Coulson was that type of man.

Things have been over between them for a while, but Grant can't help the feeling that he owes her something. He has no idea what, though.

Still, the fact that she of all people was talking about company made Grant want to laugh. "I don't think I'll get it." Grant's voice is stronger now than it was when he was talking to Jemma.

"You catch on well," she appraises him, despite everything they've been through. He dimly remembers the way Skye called her_, "…a weapon much better than a bomb…." _

His heart sinks for a number of reasons, and he draws his gaze skyward to notice the security camera in the corner of the room. He's avoided looking at it for a while now. For some reason, the blinking red dot that shows it is constantly recording does not put him at ease.

He voices his thoughts aloud. "Are we being watched?"

A single eyebrows of hers skyrockets. "There is no 'we' in this," she corrects. "But, the answer to your question is yes. They are watching. But luckily, they aren't watching us. They're only watching _you_."

By the end, her lips have pulled back into an almost feral grin. At heart, she's so sadistic. Not unlike Natasha Romanoff.

Grant ignores the many, many shivers traversing his spine. He closes his eyes, but by the time he opens his eyes, May is gone and has shut the door behind her.

He is alone once more.

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Thanks for the read!


	4. Phil Coulson

**Phil Coulson**

An overwhelming wave of nostalgia overcomes Ward when he sees Phil walk in, wearing a pristine, neatly-pressed suit. He's wearing the black suit and a white button-down shirt, the outfit he wears normally. Phil is always formal. And he's so considerate.

He walks in stiffly. He doesn't smile, so Grant doesn't have to try to smile back.

Somehow this is worse than an unsmiling May. He has lost Phil Coulson's trust, and he will never, ever regain it.

"So, how are you?" asks Phil.

The words are surprisingly casual. They're ice-breakers. They're words that Grant always says to his marks when he can't think of anything else to say. It's after he's exhausted these ice-breakers that Grant finishes the job. That's the way he always works.

That's the way he used to work.

"Okay," says Grant. It's nice to see he can still lie. But whether he's guiltless or whether Phil believes him is an entirely different matter.

"Are they feeding you?"

Grant presses his lips into a grimacing smile, touched that Coulson actually pretends to care. "Yes." Another lie.

"I keep wondering to myself, do you regret anything? Do you even feel anything?"

"Yes." The word is croaky.

"She's not coming for you."

They both know who _she_ is. "I know," he whispers faintly.

"Keep that in mind, while the rest of the world moves on. S.H.I.E.L.D is going to be rebuilt. You haven't caused the end. What you did is only helping us become better. And we're going to be at the center of it all." Grant knows Coulson's talking about the team, the team of six that has been reduced to five. He knows he is not at all a part of his calculations. "Director Fury is dead, but he wants me to be Director. Do you think I should give the job to Maria?"

"It's your call, Director." His voice is getting stronger the more people talk to him.

Coulson's lips twitch. "Goodbye. Don't waste your time waiting." And when Coulson leaves, his words finally seem to sink in, and he realizes he's losing hope.

And the sad part of this: they've already lost hope on him.

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**Chapter 5: Leo Fitz**


	5. Leo Fitz

**Leopold Fitz**

When Fitz walks in, it's impossible not to hear him. His footsteps have never been loud or boisterous; just, as a scientist never designed to be in the field, nobody ever taught him how to be quieter.

Grant was pretending to sleep, and slowly, woke up. Fitz recoils a little at the sight of him, ad Grant knows what he's seeing even though there is no mirror within sight for him to look at himself. Fitz is seeing heavy-lidded eyes and dark circles on his face, the equivalent of Garrett's bruises.

Fitz looks much the same as before, but a huge bandage encircles his head. Fitz takes a deep breath. "I don't think you're really evil."

"You should." The words are quiet, a low rumble in the back of his throat.

"I think you're weak and susceptible, and always have been since your childhood." Like Jemma, Fitz too is always right. "But, I think everybody else is the same way. You are human."

Grant shakes his head slowly, disagreeing entirely.

"Except you were manipulated because you are human. You spouted all that trash about weakness when you pushed us off the plane because that's what you believed. You know it's not called brainwashing if it's of your own volition. Just like sex isn't rape if it is consensual."

He can't believe Fitz of all people is having a conversation with him about this. Still, when Fitz mentions that incident with the plane, the guilt comes rushing back. No one's ever made him squirm before, but the raw honesty in Fitz's voice is getting to him, more than he'd like to admit.

"You tried to kill us. You _deliberately_ tried to harm us. You...are a terrible person, Grant Ward."

Grant winces, pain jabbing at his heart. The heart that Fitz now believes he doesn't have.

"Did you ever tell her?" wonders Grant.

"Who?" His Scottish accent is thick, laced into his words. No matter how much time he spends here in America surrounded by American accents, his Scottish roots will always betray him. Much like Grant can never not be associated with H.Y.D.R.A or Garrett. He pushes that thought away; it's too painful.

He steels his voice; he does not want Fitz to hear his tremulous voice. "Jemma."

Fitz stares at him. "Yes," he admits finally.

"When?"

"Down there at the bottom of the ocean." The words sting, the way they're meant to.

"I'm so happy for you," he says in an impossibly small voice.

Fitz's face crumples and twists into something Grant vaguely recognizes as…pity. "I wish I could say the same for you."

Grant opens his mouth but falls short of words, contemplative once more.

"Goodbye, Ward. I've always considered you a friend." He walks out the door, just as loud as he did coming in, but when he shuts the door, he does it carefully, gently, softly. There is a quiet ringing in Ward's ears.

But despite this, Grant does not miss the past tense in Fitz's words.

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**Chapter 5: Trip**


	6. Triplett

**Antoine Triplett**

"You know there was a time when I would have considered you a role model," says Triplett, crossing his arms.

"Not anymore, I hope."

Trip laughs, but it is bitter. He is almost bitterer than Grant. "No," he says, agreeing. "You were the perfect student assigned to one of the greatest supervising officers in the century. Besides, Phil Coulson, of course." Of course he chooses to be partial now. "I'm still trying to understand where you went wrong. Where you fell from heaven. A fallen angel."

Trip's never been particularly pious before, and this surprises Grant. "I was never an angel," he argues.

"No. An impostor," he clarifies, and this time Grant does not argue.

They lapse into a painfully tense silence.

"Do you remember when we found out about H.Y.D.R.A?" asks Trip.

Grant nods his head, thinking of the hurried kiss he got before taking on a hundred soldiers. He shouldn't be thinking of that, but that's what he thinks of.

"Do you remember how mad I was at Garrett? How confused _you_ were?"

Grant nods.

"What was going on in your head? Were you already coming with another plan the moment Coulson broke the news to you?"

He's stoic now, having gone still. He knows the answer is _yes._

"I'm trying to figure out when you decided to abandon hope of ever being an agent ever again. That kiss, the one Skye gave you right before you threw yourself into danger?" Grant tenses immediately, tries to hide it , but Garrett taught Trip well. He notices the slightest of change in Ward, and he is betrayed by his own emotions. "Yeah, she told me about that. That was your goodbye kiss. She didn't realize it, but you did. And when you survived, just to see Garrett screw up-" Trip breaks off suddenly.

Grant looks up, surprised to see Trip near tears.

"You used to be my role model. When Garrett was my S.O, he would never talk about anything but how I failed or how I wasn't Grant Ward. And the one time I told him, 'Sorry to disappoint,' he stalked off and returned with everything. Snipers, Bows, Guns. Then he gave me a set of records, and told me to beat them. And they were all your records."

Grant knows this story; Garrett told him this story. When he finishes it, his voice is the barest of whispers. "You never beat the records."

Trip shakes his head sadly.

Neither one of them can say anything to console the other for the next couple of painfully silent moments. But finally, when those moments pass, it's Trip who speaks. "You used to be my role model. But now, I sure as hell am glad that I wasn't you. I hope you're happy where you are now, because we've saved you from a hell worse than Garrett."

Trip leaves briskly, shutting the door loudly with the sheer force of his anger and bitterness. He's gone before Grant can correct him about the hell that awaits him.

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**Not my best. But the next one's gonna be good. Chapter 7: Skye!**


	7. Skye

**And...introducing Skye! For those of you who thought she was the special visitor, give yourself a pat on the back because...you're wrong! Someone else is going to show up next chapter!**

**Also, I'd like to extend a BIG thank-you to Anonymous Rex, who is practically the only one who's reviewing.**

**Furthermore, there's a little language in this one. So watch out for a well-placed F-bomb. :)**

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**Skye**

Ward might be a world-class criminal whose dignity has been reduced to ash, but that doesn't he has lost the ability to count. He's still decent with calculations.

There were six to Coulson's team. Once he excludes himself, there are five left. Of those five, only four have showed up. Trip...he's an extra. Bitterly, Grant tries not to think that he's been replaced. There's only one person that hasn't shown up. And ironically, she's the one Grant desires most to see.

Grant is a specialist. He calculates outcomes right there, right then in the field. And his chances of seeing Skye? Next to nothing.

She hates him. Skye hates Grant to the point of wishing death upon him.

He doesn't blame her. He hates himself to quite the same extent.

Deep down in his heart, he wants her to come. But he's torn between wanting to see her and fearing what she would say.

Ward has no control over this. The only thing he has control over (and the barest of control) is himself. It's pathetic. Ward closes his eyes, and rests his frame against one of the three solid cement walls to his prison. He wants her, and he cannot tame himself enough to keep from feeling the disappointment when she doesn't.

But miracles…do happen.

The door opens, that along with Ward's eyes, and he sees a figure sulk in. She (he knows it's a she by movement) stays in the shadows bye the wall farthest from his cell, the shadows obscuring her face and almost everything else. But despite this, Ward would know her curls and her posture anywhere.

"Skye," he breathes.

Her head snaps up, and even in the elusive shadows, he sees and feels her powerful eyes bore into him. She glares at him, and he wants to curl up into a ball and hide.

This…is what he was afraid of.

Her words are clipped, unfavorable for conversation. "Coulson made me come."

Grant has never been more grateful to Phil Coulson as has then.

"He wanted me to say anything and everything else I had to say, so that when we move on to other cases, we would feel closure."

Grant's almost too elated to fully process her words. But when he does, he's come off his high. His heart sinks. He's nothing but a closed case or a closed file to them. He'll never be reopened again. Case closed.

He shivers, and it's not because of the cold.

"She beat you up real good, didn't she?" Skye's gloating, almost coming into the light. _One more step…_

"Who?" he chokes out.

"May. You should have seen your face."

Grant wants to retreat, but he has nowhere to go. He has to face Skye, hear all these foul words coming from her mouth, directed at him. She hates him. And he has to come to terms with that. He'd rather be beat up by May 1000 times than have to deal with this kind of treatment from Skye.

She's breaking every part of him, and she knows it.

He stands up, using strength he's saved up for months now. He looks straight at her, daring her to come out. "You're a monster," he says, and he does not feel guilty at all.

"No," she disagrees. "You are."

"Both of us are," he croaks, feeling a sick satisfaction carve its way into his heart at her reaction.

Her eyes flare. She steps into the light, stubborn as ever. Her chocolate locks tumble down her shoulders in such a familiar way that it makes his heart ache. Her hands are clenched fists, the thumb outside the way of the other four fingers, a technique he taught her himself. Her forearms are taut with tension and restrained anger and her face is blazing fury.

Grant's never been pious either, but he wants so badly to call her an avenging angel. Instead, he says, "You know I care for you. Why deny me?" The words are sick, but then again so is Grant.

She shivers; it pleases Grant to see that he caused this.

She looks up, her furious eyes locking with his. She leans in close, inches from the glass like him, and whispers, "You are a fucking psychopath. I want nothing to do with you."

She is close enough to kiss him if the glass weren't there, but Grant knows she would do much worse to him if the glass weren't there to protect him. She might even summon up the guts to punch him. And the truth is Grant wouldn't have the heart to stop her.

Ironic, that he is the one being protected from her.

She's always been shorter than him, but he feels so short now. She's taking his heart, and stepping all over it in high heels. "You came onto the BUS and made everyone trust you. We trusted you in return. When you had your highs and lows, ups and downs, we all came to help you out. When you had your stint with the Berserker staff, we all helped you. But when you had that option to save your skin, ours, or Garrett's, well, you know best of all what you chose. What you _condemned_ yourself to," she spat.

Something pricks at Grant's eyes, and he's ashamed to admit he hasn't cried since he was 15.

"You knew exactly what you were getting into. You pushed FitzSimmons off a plane to their deaths! You slept with May for personal gain. You tried to get close to me, and you succeeded. But by the time you had deluded yourself into thinking there was any hope between us, you made your choice."

His lip is quivering; he cannot hold out much longer. _These walls keep tumbling down…_

"Hail H.Y.D.R.A!" she hisses, mocking him and everything about him.

His eyelashes are wet now.

"Goodbye, Grant Ward. This is the last you'll ever see of me. I hope you rot in hell." She slams the door on her way out, but somehow the ringing in Grant's ears and the liquid sadness in Grant's eyes does not stop 'til days after.

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**Wow, this one was long. And emotional, and I was the one writing it! Special visitor coming soon! Welcome to guesses!**


	8. John Garrett

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed, but the special visitor is...**

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**John Garrett**

Grant knows there is something wrong the instant the red dot of the security camera stops blinking. It is his assigned sleeping time, but Grant is always awake.

The door opens, and it's the middle of the night. There's always been a creaky hinge on that door—it's in need of oiling—but what scares him the most is the man who walks through, the man who has haunted his nightmares for every night he has been in here.

John Garrett approaches the glass, his face finally coming "_out of the shadows and into the light"_. The moonlight slants across his cruel face, making it look sharper than ever.

Grant sucks in a breath, wishing it were a dream.

"We have work to do," he says, living proof that he is a man come back from the dead.

Grant's wishes never come true.

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**THE END **


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